When you’re an independent consultant, your prospects are coming to you instead of a large firm (or even a boutique firm) because a) you’re cheaper and b) you’ve done this specific thing before.

But telling one story about how you’ve done this before isn’t usually compelling enough to close a deal.

Why?

• It commoditizes you - they’ll mentally compare you to another consultant who has done this 5 times vs. once or twice
• They believe their context is different - and they may be right
• All told, they’re not actually interested in details of what you’ve done somewhere else

Instead, they want to know the one-level-up POV of how these projects usually go so they can understand the path forward.

That POV is your unique IP.

The best part? That IP already exists in your head based on your experiences - all you have to do is extract and codify it.

Then your conversation with the client becomes about applying your IP to their context, and suddenly you’re a strategic thought partner already in their corner before a contract has even been signed.

Look inward, create a map, then show them the path.

💡

-Wes